Monday, March 14, 2011

It's relative.

I will note that nowhere in the article does the New York Times mention that the sailors on the USS Ronald Reagan who were belowdecks didn't get any unusual levels of radiation at all. You know, down there with the pair of Westinghouse nuclear reactors that they conveniently forgot to mention powered the ship in question...

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And Switzerland announces they have halted development of their three new reactors pending "review" of the situation in Japan.

Can't wait to see what the "review" process here entails...

Meanwhile, while everybody's back is turned, the O issues a statement on gun control:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42063945/ns/politics

"We should provide an instant, accurate, comprehensive and consistent system for background checks to (gun) sellers who want to do the right thing, and make sure that criminals can't escape it," he wrote.

Looks like code for gunshow and private seller restrictions to me. But hey, it turns out the Man himself is our tireless advocate, personally responsible for "allowing guns in national parks and wildlife refuges"...I did not know that.

I love how the pressies are all "blah-blah-blah umpteen times legal limit blah blah blah." Legal limits for immediate dosages are darn close to the least measurable amounts due to uncertainty about future and radiation booga boogas.

IIRC a month's dose is roughly equivalent to a week or two spent skiing in Colorado, no?

Of course, the MSM also fails to mention that the sailors who were above deck got roughly the same radiation exposure as if they had eaten about 10 bananas (if my math is right - if not I will happily stand corrected).

"And Switzerland announces they have halted development of their three new reactors pending "review" of the situation in Japan."

I'd like to see the Swiss reactor that would have to withstand both an 8.9 quake and a tsunami on the same day.

I fail to see what everybody is worried about regarding the radiation. When the magic plume of death reaches the US FEMA will have already pre-positioned the formaldehyde-laden trailers of death at concentration camps in the desert. No need to worry about creating genetic monsters because of irradiation when the off-gassing will split your genes and kill you much faster.

Hopefully, we don't lose sight of the fact that roughly 10,000 people died due to that experimental modern technology known as "cities near the ocean used as a seaport".

I guess no one thought that a tsunami could take out the all of the redundant diesel generators near the plant. Still, while it looks like a few reactors are toast, and some radioactive steam will get vented and blown out to sea, things don't look too bad.

Newer generation molten salt thorium fuel cycle reactors would only melt a safety plug and drain out the nuclear fuel into sub-critical pools of material.

I think that we should not put all of our eggs in the same basket. I like both the pebble -bed reactors and the Thorium reactors, esp. since yellowcake is currently at $66.75/lb and probably half of the long term supplies will most likely be sucked up by China and India. Current use is reportedly higher than current production.

A lot of the ROMG! (Radioation OMG!) regs were written at a time when it was believed that any radiation dose left cumulative damage. Since this sells sunscreen and panic, there hasn't been much effort made to doublecheck this assumption.

I am going to make a completely safe prediction - that the sum total radioactive atmospheric emissions from all the plants in Japan will be less than than the radioactives emitted from a coal plant in a year.

Being below decks on a carrier is VERY safe. They are more protected than just about anywhere else.

Having spent 9 years sleeping less than 100 feet of a Westinghouse Reactor on Nuclear Subs, my exposure was lower while underway at power than it ever was at home.

Live in a brick home or go to the beach much? Much higher exposure. Almost 8 times as much in any given month at home than at sea. We were asked to leave our dosimiters on board if we lived in a brick home so we would not get false readings.

I can actually see folks belowdecks on that there nuclear-powered bomb magnet getting lower rad doses than the helo crews flying to and fro through the reactor plumes sans protection. Belowdecks, even with the reactors there's more shielding, less air flow, a ton on thermal neutron absorbtion outside (seawater) etc. Then again, I'm glad I retired from the Constant Phoenix mission in 2006, because my successors are flying their butts off over there right now trying to wrangle those plumes' dimensions, gross activities, and headings. Wave to the pretty white and gray USAF sniffer bird as it goes overhead!

It's not what reporters don't know, it's what they know wrongly - and repeat anyhow.A banana equivalent dose..."After Three Mile Island the NRC detected radioactive iodine in local milk at levels of 0,74 Bq/l (20 pCi/l) - a dose much less than one would receive from ingesting a single banana. Standing next to a crate of bananas causes a measurable dose...

I've been eating through my supply of KIO3 like they were tic tacs! Doomed! DOOMED!! Radiation will kill about 33 billion people on this planet in the next month or so. I read that on the intenet, it has to be true.